I'd be curious to know where you can pick up 100 OTA channels in one geographic area that you can actually receive and see on a TV screen. I'm located between Baltimore and D.C. and I get about 51 channels when I run a scan, many of which I can't actually receive. In reality, I can actually receive about 30-40 channels, and most of them are sub-channels. I get duplicates of all of the major network channels from each market, a couple of independent channels, and 4 or 5 PBS channels, all in HD.

I echo the sentiment regarding Tivo's guide data. I can't recall any instances where it was wrong unless there was a last minute schedule change that occurred too late for Tivo to update it.

I recently bought a Tivo Roamio to use with local over the air signals.
It was not very good a pulling in all the local channels which I receive well using my new Samsung tv.
I installed a tuner from Hauppage in my pc. It also works well in pulling in local tv signals.
Has anybody else been having issues with the Roamio atsc tuner?
donald

It would be interesting to know how this DVR's OTA reception is compared to the various TiVo and non TiVo options out there. Unfortunately the only way to really know how the reception compares is to have all the DVRs in one place that has marginal reception and/or the common reception issues and test them off the same line.

The reality is there are getting to be a good number of options for OTA, which is a really good thing. I would love someone to do a large scale comparison but I do not think it is going to happen.

The trend for OTA is down, the market is shrinking, and a lot of people can't get OTA reception. Don't get me wrong I use OTA myself but i also see the handwriting on the wall that people in our government would just as soon sell off the frequency ranges for wireless internet/ advanced cell phone networks sooner than later.

__________________
"It's tough thinking of something clever to write down here, I don't know how Chuck Lorre does it..."

I recently bought a Tivo Roamio to use with local over the air signals.
It was not very good a pulling in all the local channels which I receive well using my new Samsung tv.
I installed a tuner from Hauppage in my pc. It also works well in pulling in local tv signals.
Has anybody else been having issues with the Roamio atsc tuner?
donald

So are you for real? Or just another Channel Master Pimp?

Most people (including me) have found the Roamio OTA tuners to be very good. In my setup my Roamio OTA tuners are as good or better than any other tuners I have used including my Panasonic TV & HDHomeRun.

On the outside chance you are for real, if your Roamio's OTA tuners are significantly different than the other tuners you mention I would assume you had a defective unit.

Just a note for other readers this account (donald26) was just opened and used to post 2 negative comments about Roamio & OTA reception. Once to bring the channel master thread back up and again in anther thread where the channel master was mentioned as an option.

Very interesting. The cable companies won't like this much at all, that's like 2 or 3 months cable bill for a lot of people, and then you're done.

Other than the fact that you don't get 90% of the content that you get on cable.

This whole "cord cutting" thing is ridiculous. It's just a small minority of cable subscribers who don't watch much, if any TV in the first place.

TiVo is only able to compete in this space because their OTA DVR is one of the very few OTA DVR solutions out there, and primarily because most of the people who buy it are using with CableCard.

From the Zatz article:

Quote:

While we frequently discuss “cord cutters”, the fact is that there are something around 15 million antenna-only households… many of whom are price sensitive and still fumble around with VCRs. This is the market Channel Master is prioritizing with DVR+ and the company’s first goal is a rock solid over-the-air digital recorder, with additional online content to follow – to expand its utility and potential audience.

I think this is key, and price point is going to be extremely critical in this market. That market is very underserved since most DVRs come from the MSOs.

I read about the Channel Master DVR in another forum thread about a new tablo? apparently there are about 3 OTA dvrs availalble these days that can be used without a subscription. I seem to remember the Tivo series 1 allowed you to use it without a subscription but it was extremely limited use. I don't plan on dropping Tivo but not sure we will ever replace our current HD Tivo when it dies. We fall into the category of those that really do not watch much regular TV, finding we use Netflix streaming more. My wife has 1 morning talk show that she likes to watch while exercising and that must be live, I ended up setting up a small antenna feeding the tv at her exercise bike. We are currently trying the Redbox Instant as well but that lacks the selections Netflix has to offer. A few shows we would use our Tivo for can be seen with no commercial interruptions via a seperate Roku channel. I never thought I would be annoyed with fast forwarding through commercials but after a few years with services like Netflix, I prefer no commercials. I think the day is coming that we no longer use Comcast/Verizon for anything other than an internet connection. On the other hand, after more than a decade of hearing the Tivo beep with every press of the remote we may have a hard time adjusting to not having it.

On edit: for a while I had a pretty good external directional antenna hooked up to the HD Tivo, it worked but not satisfactory because of our location, it would have to be turned too often, and the multidirectional antennas did not work as well. The external antenna was only good for 1 or 2 channels at any one setting, and some times when turning it, even though it registered the correct location it would be off enough to affect the signal.

If you already have a media PC, you can buy Silcondust's HDHomeRun network OTA tuners for it for allot less money and use your media PC as the DVR.

And risk some windows update rebooting my PC in the middle of the superbowl. That kind of thing is why I have stopped short of letting my HTPC do that kind of thing. I do processing, burning, storing and transferring with it. Even recording to it via analog component cables from the tivo but I wont go there. Guess Im paranoid but I dont trust Bill Gates with my TV experience.

And risk some windows update rebooting my PC in the middle of the superbowl. That kind of thing is why I have stopped short of letting my HTPC do that kind of thing. I do processing, burning, storing and transferring with it. Even recording to it via analog component cables from the tivo but I wont go there. Guess Im paranoid but I dont trust Bill Gates with my TV experience.

You do know that you can manage Windows updates so that nothing happens unless you want it to? I've been using WMC since 2006 for ota recording, and while I do use Tivo's (for cable), I've been very happy with it's reliability.

And risk some windows update rebooting my PC in the middle of the superbowl. That kind of thing is why I have stopped short of letting my HTPC do that kind of thing. I do processing, burning, storing and transferring with it. Even recording to it via analog component cables from the tivo but I wont go there. Guess Im paranoid but I dont trust Bill Gates with my TV experience.

Seriously? You know you can schedule auto-updates anytime you want, manually authorize them or even disable them if you don't use the PC for anything else right?

MCE is rather unreliable. I had it for a very short period of time, and then came back to TiVo. What a mess MCE is. Sure, you can schedule updates, but there are a million and one other things that can go south on a PC and screw up the experience.

Over the years I have gotten very angry at people at Tivo for some of the decisions they have made but with well over a decade of use I do know Tivo has been extremely reliable doing what it does best, time shifting/saving TV. I do not know and therefore can not say the same about any of the newer DVR offerings from various alternative sources available today, will have to wait and see how well they perform over time.

MCE is rather unreliable. I had it for a very short period of time, and then came back to TiVo. What a mess MCE is. Sure, you can schedule updates, but there are a million and one other things that can go south on a PC and screw up the experience.

For the record I have had HD home run and connected to a Win7 HTPC and using Windows media Center I have recorded hundreds of shows reliably over the past 3 years with no interruptions.

The autoupdates get done but reboot does not occur until I decide to do it ( usually after I finish watching a program). I also have a TiVo Series 2 for Dish satellite just for 2 international channels that my wife watches.

For the record I have had HD home run and connected to a Win7 HTPC and using Windows media Center I have recorded hundreds of shows reliably over the past 3 years with no interruptions.

The autoupdates get done but reboot does not occur until I decide to do it ( usually after I finish watching a program). I also have a TiVo Series 2 for Dish satellite just for 2 international channels that my wife watches.

TiVo is reliable but so is the Windows based based DVR.

HTPCs are a mess. The hardware sucks for the intended use, the drivers are unreliable, etc, etc. I like having one, but I learned from my mistake that they should NEVER be in the critical path between the TV provider and the display.

The thing I have always liked about Tivo's if the power goes out and comes back the show(s) are recorded, clocks are blinking, PC is off, but the Tivo has reset itself and recorded. A nice appliance running on Linux that just records TV.
Life is complicated enough, TV should be easy.

__________________
"It's tough thinking of something clever to write down here, I don't know how Chuck Lorre does it..."

Give it a rest, Bigg. Bitterness and hatred doesn't serve anyone. By now the entire internet knows how you feel about WMC. I've seen you trash it in every HTPC/WMC-related forum I've ever been to and you get rebuffed at every turn. Nobody's buying it, except maybe tripleX.

That being said, is it possible to keep this thread on the original topic and discuss the ChannelMaster DVR rather than turning it into another WMC crapfest?

Give it a rest, Bigg. Bitterness and hatred doesn't serve anyone. By now the entire internet knows how you feel about WMC. I've seen you trash it in every HTPC/WMC-related forum I've ever been to and you get rebuffed at every turn. Nobody's buying it, except maybe tripleX.

That being said, is it possible to keep this thread on the original topic and discuss the ChannelMaster DVR rather than turning it into another WMC crapfest?

I find it rather amusing that you continue to promote MCE, which is basically a dead product at this point. A big part of the reason is that it's near impossible to set up. Yes, I technically got mine working, but it was a glitchy PITA, and my computer and networking skills are in the top couple of percent in the general population, and I couldn't get it working right. It wasn't a marketable product, even for the tech savvy.

What's even funnier is that you come on a TiVo forum to sing the praises about MCE.

Yes would be interesting to hear what real owners have to say. Of course we could just go over to the AVS Forums nice long thread there.

I owned both, since MCE was a disaster, and I came running back to TiVo. Wish I had known what a mess MCE was in the first place, but at least most of the money I dropped on the MCE machine is still useful as an HTPC...

I find it rather amusing that you continue to promote MCE, which is basically a dead product at this point. A big part of the reason is that it's near impossible to set up. Yes, I technically got mine working, but it was a glitchy PITA, and my computer and networking skills are in the top couple of percent in the general population, and I couldn't get it working right. It wasn't a marketable product, even for the tech savvy.

What's even funnier is that you come on a TiVo forum to sing the praises about MCE.

Promotion implies that I started the discussion. I've only commented about WMC after someone else has mentioned it first. I was a Tivo user long before I started tinkering with HTPCs so I still have my roots here and a long-time fondness for Tivos and DVRs in general.

FYI - the death of WMC is greatly exagerrated. It will continue to be a viable product for as long as guide data is available or providers completely change their method of delivering content to your home. In other words, it will still be around for many years to come, regardless of how you feel about it. There just won't be any future updates to the software.

What's funny is that you claim WMC is impossible to set up. You do realize that it takes you by the hand and guides you through it, right? What continues to boggle my mind is that you claim to be this tech savvy individual, but you can't seem to follow a simple set of instructions. If you're trying to set up some exotic feature then it might increase the difficulty level, but only slightly. There are countless tutorials and guides on the web that are available to help you with virtually any WMC modification or tweak. This isn't the rocket science you make it out to be. It just isn't that hard.

Of course, if you have hardware issues or conflicting drivers, then by all means, blame WMC. A fresh reinstall of Windows tends to fix most WMC problems 99% of the time. If that doesn't do it then you need to look elsewhere.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bigg

I owned both, since MCE was a disaster, and I came running back to TiVo. Wish I had known what a mess MCE was in the first place, but at least most of the money I dropped on the MCE machine is still useful as an HTPC...

I'd be curious to know exactly what you're using your HTPC for if you're not using WMC. Are you using a different DVR app or just using it for media playback, such as music and videos? What front end and apps are you using?

The main reason I use WMC is because it's currently the only way to record encrypted content on a HTPC. I've never made any claims that it's the best DVR app available, but I've only tried a few so I have very little to compare it with. In fact, if it hadn't been for the introduction of the Ceton Cablecard tuners, I'd probably still be using BeyondTV on Windows XP. Talk about your dead products. There are several other front ends that are supposedly better for DVR use, but they aren't certified by CableLabs and thereby limits their usability.

Quote:

Originally Posted by slowbiscuit

For the 14th million time - no, it's not and there wouldn't be an entire website dedicated to it (TGB) if it was. Please stop extrapolating your experience as if it is everyone's, because it's not.

Promotion implies that I started the discussion. I've only commented about WMC after someone else has mentioned it first. I was a Tivo user long before I started tinkering with HTPCs so I still have my roots here and a long-time fondness for Tivos and DVRs in general.

WHAT? You're still promoting MCE by the way you post about it.

Quote:

FYI - the death of WMC is greatly exagerrated. It will continue to be a viable product for as long as guide data is available or providers completely change their method of delivering content to your home. In other words, it will still be around for many years to come, regardless of how you feel about it. There just won't be any future updates to the software.

It's orphaned, and unless it's available in Windows 9, which all indications are that it will not be, it will die for good on January 10, 2023. However, for all practical purposes, it's dead now, as there's no support, upgrades, or anything else for it.

Quote:

What's funny is that you claim WMC is impossible to set up. You do realize that it takes you by the hand and guides you through it, right? What continues to boggle my mind is that you claim to be this tech savvy individual, but you can't seem to follow a simple set of instructions. If you're trying to set up some exotic feature then it might increase the difficulty level, but only slightly. There are countless tutorials and guides on the web that are available to help you with virtually any WMC modification or tweak. This isn't the rocket science you make it out to be. It just isn't that hard.

First of all, the entire UI is completely idiotic, and it's difficult to find anything in it, or even figure out what the UI elements mean. It's completely inconsistent with anything else I've ever used, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, Mainframe, ANYTHING. Then there's two separate setups needed, one for CableCard device drivers, then the one through MCE. I got mine setup and working, but for a normal person, it would be basically impossible to wade through.

Quote:

Of course, if you have hardware issues or conflicting drivers, then by all means, blame WMC. A fresh reinstall of Windows tends to fix most WMC problems 99% of the time. If that doesn't do it then you need to look elsewhere.

Mine was on a COMPLETELY fresh install of Windows on a BRAND NEW computer. I blame Microsoft, not MCE specifically. They built MCE, and they built Windows. You can't detach the MCE Microsoft from the Windows Microsoft when they are the same Microsoft. My HTPC is still unreliable to this day, with audio driver problems. Luckily, it's not in the critical path of much of anything now.

Quote:

I'd be curious to know exactly what you're using your HTPC for if you're not using WMC. Are you using a different DVR app or just using it for media playback, such as music and videos? What front end and apps are you using?

VLC and Windows Explorer, and once in a blue moon internet streaming of something that's not available in any other format.

Quote:

The main reason I use WMC is because it's currently the only way to record encrypted content on a HTPC. I've never made any claims that it's the best DVR app available, but I've only tried a few so I have very little to compare it with. In fact, if it hadn't been for the introduction of the Ceton Cablecard tuners, I'd probably still be using BeyondTV on Windows XP. Talk about your dead products. There are several other front ends that are supposedly better for DVR use, but they aren't certified by CableLabs and thereby limits their usability.

Right. At best, they can't get HBO, if you're lucky enough to have a cable provider that uses the copy flags correctly.

TiVo is really the only game in town for owning your own DVR at this point. MCE is dead. It brought up the client/server model that every major MSO plus TiVo has now adopted, and we can thank M$ and their kludgy product for that, but as a product itself, it's dead.

What's funny is that my wife is a complete moron when it comes to technology and computers, yet she's able to use WMC with virtually no problems. I say virtually because if there's any way she can get into trouble with anything technical, she'll find it. Any issues she's ever had have been mostly related to hitting the wrong input button on the remote and not the use of WMC.